Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Mark Prisk

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. In contrast to the Labour party’s top-down approach, the new homes bonus rewards areas as new homes are built. That means that it enables councils and communities to invest in things that matter to them, rather than Whitehall’s imposing on them what we think that they ought to have. There is a big contrast between the last Government and this one.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

18. What steps he plans to take to increase the supply of council housing.

Arms Export Controls

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Mark Prisk

Thursday 20th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate. I thank the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) for the way in which he introduced it and the thorough nature of the report. Parliament has come a long way over the past 15 years. We now have the Committees to monitor arms exports, an annual debate and the facility to hold the Government to account on individual export licences. That is a great improvement from the past, when there was no facility whatsoever to discuss the issues in any way. I therefore want to thank the MPs who have campaigned for that successful change in Parliament’s procedures on the issue over the years. Clearly, if the procedures are to work, this debate has to work, and it is more than a little disappointing that so few Members are present this afternoon. Many Members regularly sign early-day motions and other things condemning human rights abuses and arms exports to repressive regimes, so it is a shame that they cannot be here to develop that case.

I want to raise many issues, but I realise that even with the paucity of Members, there is still a limit on time. I want to draw attention to the points made by the Select Committee report, particularly the reference made to the judgment and misjudgment of successive Governments concerning what is happening in the Arab world, north Africa and the middle east in particular.

There is a recommendation on enforcement, particularly against brass-plate companies, which are companies that are registered in the UK but trading in arms from overseas locations. I realise that that is quite a complex and difficult legal area to deal with, but we have to be tough on British-based operations that in reality evade any export controls on arms that end up being used for repression. Page 3 of the report states that

“there is no justification for allowing a UK person to conduct arms exports overseas that would be a criminal offence if carried out from the UK and we recommend that the Government extends extra-territoriality to all items on the Military List in Category C.”

The last point to which I wish to draw attention is the end-use of torture equipment, much of which is not obviously torture equipment but ends up being used as such when it arrives in the hands of a particularly repressive regime.

Earlier, I intervened on the right hon. Gentleman to ask about the revocation of arms export licences to Bahrain, but the same could apply to a number of other places. It simply is not good enough to decide that an armed force in a particular country is following all the relevant Geneva conventions when there is a civil conflict going on in that society. I mentioned Colombia, but I could have also included the Congo and many other societies around the world, where the army is simply not an insular institution that is following Government orders. It is often dominated by rogue elements, and there is an inevitable crossover between them, militia activities, criminal activities and drug-related gangs. The same could apply in many other countries in Central America where there is not a large volume of British arms exports but nevertheless there are deep suspicions of the involvement of armed forces in wholly illegal and illicit activities that provoke civilian conflict. At one level, the army presents itself as a reasonable organisation, but at another level, it is not.

If we think back to the 1970s, British planes and other equipment and arms were sold to Chile under the elected Government of Salvador Allende. Those planes were then used to bomb the presidential palace, which resulted in the death of the President and the terrible night of Pinochet’s years. Selling arms has an effect, even if they are sold to a regime that we might agree with or, at that stage, approve of. We must be careful to condemn human rights abuses when the arms concerned have been provided by us in the first place.

On the question of the suspension of arms exports to Israel, particularly surrounding Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), had an interesting exchange of views with the Chair of the Select Committee. On 10 February 2011, he said:

“I can confirm that UK policy on the export of controlled goods and equipment to Israel has not changed since the Coalition Government took office. All export licence applications to Israel are considered on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Export Licensing Criteria.”

The Select Committee then quite rightly said:

“We further recommend that if the Government is unable to identify any such arms or components of arms, it formally withdraws the statement of policy quoted in this paragraph.”

There is a belief that the weapons are actually used to further the occupation of the west bank and Gaza and not for the national defence of Israel. This is a critical area of policy that needs to be further examined.

We have been listening to what is happening in Libya. The death of Colonel Gaddafi was announced a few hours ago, and there will now be a different Government. An interesting picture appeared on Facebook yesterday, showing a montage of European leaders literally having hugs and kisses and embraces with Colonel Gaddafi. No one was spared and no one is missing and all the pictures were taken in the last two years. The arms that have been sold to Libya were being delivered up until March of this year, and we were training Libyan forces until then, too. There was a close economic relationship with Colonel Gaddafi’s Government, as I do not doubt there will now be with the Transitional National Council. It looks a tad of a short space of time, between March 2011 and October 2011, to be selling arms to a Government who, a month later, we decided were deeply oppressive and had to be opposed by all means—indeed, NATO forces helped to oppose that particular Government—to the current situation. What goes round comes round. The suggestion of hypocrisy in the policies conducted by successive western European Governments must be considered very carefully.

I am pleased that arms exports to Bahrain have been stopped. The human rights abuses there are serious. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) mentioned the Gulf Co-operation Council forces that are in Bahrain. Yes, they are in Bahrain and they are part of the Gulf Co-operation Council agreement, but in reality, their presence there bolsters the Government of Bahrain and protects them in their wish to continue their existence.

Human rights abuses in Bahrain are not new. I first met people from Bahraini human rights groups at a UN conference in 1986, which is an awfully long time ago. They were concerned about the suspension of the constitution, the lack of parliamentary democracy, or its limited nature, and the discrimination in that society and they have been bravely campaigning on those issues ever since then. The request to suspend arms sales to Bahrain is not a new one, and I am glad that it has now been carried out. We have also exported a great deal of surveillance equipment to the country, which has been used on the opposition and resulted in imprisonment, torture and all kinds of other things. I welcome the suspension of sales, which appears in great detail in the Select Committee report and the Government’s response to it.

Saudi Arabia, which has been mentioned by two of the previous speakers, is the biggest single importer of British arms. The sales between Britain and Saudi Arabia are absolutely massive. It still makes me angry to think about how the previous Prime Minister bar two, Tony Blair, intervened to suspend a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the al-Yamamah arms contract with Saudi Arabia. He said that it was not in the national interest to investigate that particular contract because it was too big and too important to BAE Systems. I am sorry but if we are serious about human rights, democracy and protecting people’s lives, we should be equally serious about what we sell, what we export, what we profit from and what practices we condone by not being prepared to investigate them. I hope that the regime of control of arms exports that the Committees suggest is something that the Government will take on board.

The last couple of points that I want to mention come from the Amnesty briefing, which says:

“It is vital that a strong commitment to human rights and international law are a core part of the final ATT.”

It then urges the UK Government to

“Prevent sceptical governments from trying to use the ‘consensus’ as a way of watering down or de-railing the ATT process.

Prevent a weak treaty from being a dangerous backwards step for human rights and international law.

Express support for the ATT to include the ‘Golden Rules’ that prevent transfers”—

so that there is a proper end-user system, and—

“Support comprehensive scope, including conventional weapons of all kinds.”

We are talking in part about highly sophisticated weaponry, night-sight equipment, surveillance equipment and all the rest of it, but I have seen—as have other Members in this Chamber—the most appalling abuses of human rights in the Congo and other places. There is nothing sophisticated about any of it. There is nothing sophisticated about the weaponry that is used. It is a lot of second-hand Kalashnikovs and second-hand weapons that have been bought on the open market anywhere around the world. Those weapons are used to create the most appalling mayhem that kills a very large number of wholly innocent people who are merely trying to survive in an area that, unfortunately, is blessed with huge mineral wealth, which is of greater interest to mining companies than the human rights of the people concerned.

We have a lot to learn from what has happened in the past few months. I welcome the fact that arms exports have been suspended in many cases. I hope that the Minister will take on board the point that I made in an intervention to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South concerning the examination of the role of a military in a particular society, the quasi-independence under which the military operate and the activities that the military might be wholly illegally engaged in. It is not good enough for the Government of a particular country to come along and say, “Our military do what we say,” when we have a great deal of suspicion—indeed, there may well be a lot of common suspicion among other countries—about what the military in that country actually do.

My hon. Friend asked a very specific question about Sri Lanka and I thought that it was a very good and very fair question. The Government of Sri Lanka were very quick to use the ceasefire process to stock themselves up with large amounts of arms while arms sales to Sri Lanka are currently suspended. There is a huge diplomatic initiative by the Government of Sri Lanka to be allowed to buy arms all around the world. The human rights situation in Sri Lanka is not right: there are still too many people in prison; there are still too many people suffering; and there is still a lack of a rehabilitation process that can bring about a proper peace there. Given those factors, we have no business to be selling arms to Sri Lanka.

[Mr Prisk]

I did not have the chance earlier, because the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) moved on to other topics, but for his assurance, the House’s assurance and the assurance of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I am happy to say that the policy on Sri Lanka has not changed, and that is a categorical position.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the Minister for that intervention and I am very relieved to hear that, because the lobbying on this matter by the Sri Lankan Government is quite intensive.

In conclusion, I want to echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark). If we as a country rely on a large volume of arms exports and on an arms industry, we run the risk of being culpable in the abuse of human rights, the killing of civilians and the promotion of conflict. We should think quite seriously about these things and about the role that we play. Perhaps we should instead embark on a longer-term strategy of being less dependent on the arms industry and arms exports, and put the skills in the arms industry towards the creation of more socially useful products. The skills and abilities in the arms industry are fantastic, and the knowledge in the industry is incredible, but that knowledge can be used for good things just as much as it can be used to produce weapons that can end up causing the most appalling destruction, even if that was not the intention behind their use when they were initially exported.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

That highlights the dangers and the challenges around policy and military issues, and the difficulty—with particular regard to the nature of warfare today, which my hon. and gallant Friend understands better than I, having served in our armed forces—of getting the judgment absolutely right. I suspect he is pointing to an area where, on reflection, the west would rather not have seen the outcomes it has. However, I do understand.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I commend the Minister for suspending the export licences to Bahrain earlier this year. The list of items suspended is very comprehensive. Most of the equipment suspended was anti-personnel or crowd-control equipment that is now being used by the Bahrain forces to deal with what they term dissident forces in the country. We have sold the same kind of equipment to most countries in the region. It is in all probability being used in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other places. Does the Minister not think that the sale of equipment to regimes that do not allow normal political dissent and freedom of speech and assembly should be thought through a bit more? Should we not use those criteria first, rather than wait for an eruption?

[Mr Prisk]

I understand the point, though it is not only authoritarian regimes that act in a way we sometimes find unacceptable, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out earlier. That is the point of the new criteria: to look at how we better judge those risks in future and try to learn from decisions made in the past. In a sense, it comes to the broader issue of revocations raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling. I am grateful that he accepted that there are a substantial number of revocations. That is important for us to do. Some might argue that that is an indication of a greater number of previous errors. That is a judgment for others, not for me to concur with.

Although I do not concur with the view expressed about the appropriateness or otherwise of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, the point about the need for Government to think about both systems and judgments is perfectly reasonable. I suspect there will be times when we make judgments with which the Committee might not be comfortable. However, the need to have regard for both systems and judgments is understood, and I respect that point.

A number of hon. Members asked how licensing works. I welcome the remarks from different hon. Members that we have a strong defence industry, which is something to be welcomed, especially in difficult economic times. Although the defence industry in this country is sometimes controversial, it is vital to our manufacturing base. Defence exports help to maintain key engineering skills in the UK; indeed, some 300,000 people work in that sector, many of whom are skilled. I accept the matter raised by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) and understand the point the hon. Member for Islington North was making. I do not necessarily share his full view about turning swords into ploughshares, but he makes a perfectly reasonable and respectable point that should be put on the record.

The defence industry is important, as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Chesterfield also clearly believes. We need to ensure that we support skilled individuals in that industry. If I may stray an inch beyond the demarcation of the debate, I should also say that spreading our engineering and manufacturing base is a crucial challenge to us, which I am happy to take up and on which we have been working hard. The volume of licensing activity has increased significantly, which is partly because legitimate defence exporters have been getting their job right. At the same time, as was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling, the Export Control Organisation has made considerable improvements in its efficiency. However, we are in a very tough public expenditure climate and efficiency savings can, of course, only take us so far.

Several right hon. and hon. Members raised the issue of charging. Let me make this point. Charging is an idea that we have explored with exporters, but only as part of the wider question of how we best reform the service to ensure we deliver the best kind of service without diminishing the quality of the controls that have been debated in this Chamber. What I would say is if and when—and I emphasise “if” and “when”—that subject becomes a formal Government proposal with a timetable, we will launch a full public consultation. However, I accept the point raised by my right hon. Friend about the need to ensure the consultation reflects the independence of the Export Control Organisation. That is a perfectly legitimate point to make and were we to go down that road, we would obviously wish to include that matter in the consultation, so that we can be satisfied that we have got the balance right. Again, that was a useful point raised in the debate.

We, as a Government, do not feel there needs to be a conflict between effective export controls and supporting a strong defence sector. As has been discussed, regulations that are timely and effective are of key importance to both the competitiveness of the UK industry and strong export controls. Since last year, we have sought to improve both how the regulations work and the processes. For example, the export control order was amended three times last year. An amending order came into force in August 2010 which, among other changes, added anti-vehicle landmines to category B of the trade controls, which means that trade in those items by UK persons anywhere in the world is subject to control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does that also include a universal jurisdiction application for any person who arrives in this country who has been trading in those illegal landmines? Would they be subject to the law of this country even though the offence had not been committed within UK jurisdiction?

[Mr Prisk]

The point is that putting those items into category B of the trade controls means that, wherever a person has traded in them, they are brought within category B and therefore within the controls that the hon. Gentleman has described.

The Committees’ report welcomes the fact that the Government are exploring ways to exercise effective control of brass-plate companies. We are considering a range of options, and most hon. Members understand that the issue is complex and challenging. The problem is how to ensure that any measure we take tackles overseas trade effectively—in other words, activity outside our own jurisdiction. There is a debate around whether pre-licensing registration for category C and other types of trade should operate. Our concern is whether, in fact, that would deter the sort of illegal arms trader we are talking about, because, for them, the revocation of registration would, frankly, not affect their trade or, indeed, their behaviour. We understand and are considering that issue, which is thorny and has vexed the minds of many Ministers before me. We will come back to the Committees in due course on that matter. I want to ensure that if we introduce a proposal, it will work in practice, rather than just announcing something that does not work. That is the challenge, and we are trying to get it right. However, I accept the Committees’ point on that.

I want to discuss one change to the export control order, because hon. Members have rightly raised the issue of lethal injection. On 30 November last year, as has been mentioned, we brought into force an order with regard to sodium thiopental in the United States. We took that action following reports that some states in the US were using it in the process of lethal injections. We then moved on to consider the other drugs that are used in lethal injections in some, although not many, US states. We consulted the industry, because the difficulty with some of those drugs is that they have a dual use that is perfectly legitimate and medicinal. Having done that, in April, we introduced a new order that imposed controls on potassium chloride, pancuronium bromide and sodium pentobarbital. In doing so, the Government are seeking to lead the way in introducing domestic controls in that area, and we are now pushing for action at an EU level. Those are important advances, because they demonstrate that the Government are willing to listen to concerns and respond where there is evidence to do so, applying controls that are proportionate to the risk in a way that does not unduly burden legitimate businesses.

I want to discuss two other points in that field: first, several hon. Members have mentioned expanded military end-use control; and, secondly, I want to address the question of torture end-use control. On expanded military end-use control, the Government have always made it clear that any changes should be adopted right across the EU not only to be fully effective, but in order not to disadvantage legitimate UK exporters. We expect to see a formal proposal by September 2012 and that the subsequent legislative process will continue into 2013. In the meantime, for the reasons that I have mentioned, we do not intend to take any action at a national level. That step forward from the Commission and the fact it has begun the preparation of the dual use regulation is encouraging. I hope that that is helpful to the Committees’ deliberations.

I shall also update hon. Members on the progress made with regard to torture end-use control, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Islington North. This country has the most rigorous controls on equipment identified as being used in torture, which are known as category A goods. In April this year, as we reported back to the Committee, I wrote to Baroness Ashton asking her to introduce controls on the export of drugs used in execution by lethal injection. I also asked her to consider a torture end-use control. I can tell hon. Members that she has replied and has confirmed that this autumn the Commission will begin the process of amending the annexes to the torture regulation to control execution drugs. I understand that a meeting has been proposed for sometime in November. Baroness Ashton has also advised us that, once the process is complete, the Commission will examine the scope of the regulation and, at that point, I will make further representations on the end-use control. If there are any further developments on that, I would be happy to write to the Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling, to bring him and other Committee members up to speed. Although there was an initial delay from my original pressing of the Commission in April, the fact that we have now got a response is an encouraging step forward.

Several hon. Members have mentioned the effective operation of the Export Control Organisation. We have been seeking to improve that organisation. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran mentioned the question of sales in that field and what that means for licensing numbers, as did the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Chesterfield. The number of applications received by ECO has increased from 12,729 standard individual export licence applications in 2008 to 16,477 last year. The truth is that that increase has meant that ECO has fallen slightly behind the target time for processing standard individual export licences, which is running at 64% being processed within 20 days—the target is 70%.

This year has been challenging. The events across north Africa and the middle east have created huge fluctuations in licence application flow and increased complexity in processing individual cases. It is still too early to know the full outcomes for the year, as we are only in October. However, it is expected that the performance we saw last year, just missing the 70% target, may well continue this year. I am monitoring and pursuing the matter, and I am aware that the staff have had to deal with a substantial change in events. Nevertheless, there is work to do.

While there has been some criticism from business, to which I am listening, there has also been some praise. For example, last year ECO won the “better regulation” category of the National Business Awards. The panel found that it was a great example of a public sector organisation applying the best commercial principles and systems to increase the service offering for its customers. The panel also said that ECO had demonstrated that it had substantially reduced the regulatory burden at every level without compromising national security. These have been a difficult couple of years for the staff, so I would like to put on record my thanks to them for having achieved this while having to deal with a reduction in resources.

On the operational issues that hon. Members have touched on, ECO has also responded to calls from former Committees in the field of operational questions. We amended the end-user undertaking for standard licences in July 2010 to make it clear that an export licence does not authorise re-export, and that the risk of unauthorised export is a factor in our licensing decisions. That is an important change. We have also taken positive steps to strengthen the service for legitimate exporting companies. For example, in June we launched two new advisory services, the control list classification advice service and the end-user advice service, as part of a more efficient way of dealing with things. Secondly, we continue to run what have proved to be successful training seminars. So far this year, 24 training courses have been delivered involving 627 delegates. We think that that will rise to 40 courses by the end of the year.

Hon. Members have raised the issue of enforcement. That is an important point, so let me touch on it briefly before I move on to some of the other topics, including the arms trade treaty. From August 2010 to September 2011, we sent 56 warning letters. We audited those letters three to six months later and found that in all cases the warning letter had led to a significant improvement in the exporter’s administrative processes. That is important, because Governments are often good at issuing notices, but not necessarily as good at following them up. It is therefore encouraging to see that good progress.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the UK Border Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service continue actively to enforce UK export controls, as well as the United Nations, EU and Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe sanctions. Between April 2009 and March 2010—when I have the most up-to-date figures I will bring them forward, but these are the best we have at the moment—HMRC and UKBA made 134 seizures of unlicensed strategic exports at the UK border. During the same period, HMRC and the CPS worked together to prosecute successfully five significant cases of export control violations, including the illegal supply of military and radiation detection equipment to Iran.

The Bribery Act 2010 came into force on 1 July 2011. I will come to the issue of bribery and corruption in the arms trade treaty in a moment, but it is worth pointing out that, as a Government coming into challenging economic times, we nevertheless chose to proceed with the implementation of the 2010 Act. That was not always welcomed across business and industry, but the Ministry of Justice has rightly put in place sensible guidance to strike a balance between our economic needs and ensuring that we tackle corruption, whether committed at home or abroad. Therefore, I hope hon. Members recognise that, in the operation of our export controls, we are making important changes and are looking to strengthen how we operate. On that note, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran mentioned the issue of depleted uranium and whether our policy has changed. I can confirm to her that it has not changed, and I hope that that is helpful.

Several right hon. and hon. Members raised the issue of the arms trade treaty. I was interested to learn—I was not aware, specifically—of the Committees’ discussions with Ambassador Duncan. The diplomatic conference is due to take place in July 2012. The Government are working with key partners to use the remaining time that we have in the most effective way that we can. We want to ensure that we have the right level of resource. We have a cross-Whitehall team working on the treaty that includes not only my Department, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. We continue to use the ATT in both bilateral and multilateral discussions with other states. We are working with civil society and industry partners who share our goals. We have also been able to support a number of ATT-related projects, including research on implementation issues, capacity building in developing states and engagement with key states.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling raised the question whether the Government are committed to the inclusion of corruption in the ATT. The answer is absolutely, and that is very much part of the discussions to which I have just referred. The hon. Member for Ilford South was concerned whether there has been any change in policy on Sri Lanka. The answer is no. I hope that that is crystal clear.

In conclusion, the Government believe that a competitive defence industry and effective export control need not be incompatible. The Committees have, understandably, raised a number of important issues and we take them seriously. We have sought to be as open and thorough as we can, and we are committed to responding to these issues. The debate has been a welcome opportunity to update hon. Members on issues that they have been able to raise, and on others which are pertinent to the questions before us. On that note, I draw my remarks to a close.